The importance of Jewish learning (Yahadut) in Camp Sarah children Camp.
All you need to know about Camp Sarah Yahadut hour.
At its core, Camp Sarah is a Jewish Camp meant to bring together Jewish children from across different synagogues to embed the importance and love of Judaism in each and every one of them. While having fun, making friends, and eating tons of delicious foods is a crucial part of Camp that everyone loves, Yahadut hours are moments of Jewish learning shrouded in creative activities and storytelling that counselors hope would make a home in the memory of each child.
In preparation for Camp Sarah 2024, the Yahadut staff and administrators of Camp Sarah carefully selected 10 Jewish themes whose teachings could be spread amongst a vast age group and be understood as deeply as each edah (age group) can. Camp Sarah 2023’s curriculum followed the Jewish year, highlighting different holidays each day. This year, the curriculum focused on larger themes, through studying individual morning prayers or Jewish ideas:
Camp’s pivotal hour and 45 mins of Yahadut uses stories, arts and drama to share the history and impact of Jewish people in these respective themes, and how these themes shape and make the Jewish people unique.
To select of these yahdahut topics, the Camp staffs and administrators used a series of questions.
What is the importance of each Yahadut theme in the life of a Jewish child?
With its teachings, how can a child make a difference in this world?
Are these themes applicable no matter what, or best still, how can these themes be applied?
How can these themes be made into lifelong lessons?
And lastly, can these themes be made into memorable and fun topics by the Camp?
Though there is a seemingly never ending list of themes in Judaism, one has to understand that this is only Camp Sarah’s 2nd year. In the thoughts of Camp Sarah, the children matter, and as the first Jewish Camp in Nigeria, the Camp understand its growth is to accommodate and comfort Nigerian kids looking for a community outside their synagogues,
The Yahadut themes only reassembled this narrative and selected themes that each child have a bit of understanding for, making it easier to birth a communal and creative space that the cCampers can interact with. Most days, the children were left wanting more learning, and some opted for more Jewish learning during by choosing Yahadut as their afternoon activity..
Camp Sarah second year was even a bigger hit than last year, hosting almost a hundred people (staffs and Campers inclusive) way more than last year. So many sections of the Camp was refurbished to form better ideas and more sections were birthed to make Camp Sarah 2024 a seamless ride from start to finish.
